Coal was discovered north of Westport on Mt Rochfort in 1859, but it wasn’t until 1878 that a company raised enough money to begin to extract it. The town of Denniston was established at the top of the famous ‘incline’, a steeply graded incline railway which carried the coal down the hill. Coalbrookdale was close to Burnett's Face, and shared many of its facilities. Established by miners who wanted to live as close as possible to the mine, when the mine closed the population quickly dwindled. The last resident left Burnett's Face in 1956, by which time Coalbrookdale was already deserted. For further reading see the Friends of the Hill website.

Former rope road between Burnett’s Face and Coalbrookdale, currently DOC track, January 2013